Perpetually Never Ending
by that lionhearted vagabond
Summary: Professor Minerva McGonagall survives seven long years of James Potter and Lily Evans


_First Year_

Lily Evans had the unfortunate disadvantage of being a muggleborn girl in the undeniably prejudiced world of magic. And although Severus had told her that the status of her blood didn't matter, she had heard several of the snide remarks when she had gone to buy her supplies in Diagon Alley. So Lily, who'd always been a bright girl (and was also afflicted with the quite common adolescent illness known as pig-headedness), was going to work as hard as she could to prove to everyone that she_ belonged_. Starting with the first class of her magical education, this just happened to be transfiguration.

So she sharpened her newly bought quills (which she'd been diligently practicing writing with),and brought them, along with a couple of sheets of parchment and her textbook (which she had already read several times in an effort to conquer the divide between her and her classmates), and parked her prepubescent body directly outside the door to the transfiguration classroom. She was the first to arrive, ten minutes early, in hopes of getting a seat by the front of the classroom.

As it turned out that her time of arrival wasn't really of consequence, for Professor McGonagall gave assigned seats. Apparently they were completely random, chosen by some magical object that Lily didn't know the name of. The person she shared her desk with would, supposedly, be her partner in that particular class for the entire seven years (if they both chose to take transfiguration as an N.E.W.T. level class that is).

Transfiguration was taken with the Ravenclaws, so Severus wasn't an option, but Lily desperately hoped that her partner would be agreeable enough. So of _course_ she ended up seated next to James Potter. She had met him briefly on the train and she had taken an immediate dislike to him, he just rubbed her the wrong way. Like the way he lounged carelessly back in his chair, balancing it on two legs, annoying.

It only got worse as class started, not only did he refuse to take notes, but he also quickly became bored, so naturally he started pulling on her braids, the braids that Lily had spent half an hour doing, and re-doing this morning until they were perfect.

"Leave me alone Potter," she hissed at him as McGonagall started writing on the board.

"But why Evans? It's so much fun winding you up," he evidently had not spoken quite as quietly as his companion as McGonagall heard him; she pursed her lips slightly and glared at them, but otherwise gave no outward sign of disapproval. The lack of discipline seemed to encourage the boy for he began doodling on Lily's parchment, her very neat parchment on which she was currently taking notes for her first magical class ever.

"Potter," she hissed again, jerking her notes away from the unruly boy, this action however caused the bottle of ink she had been dipping her quill in to spill all over her notes,

"Oh now look what you've done," she half cried, trying valiantly to wipe it off with minimal success.

"Me?" James replied, "You're the one that knocked the ink over." McGonagall heard them again, because she, like quite a few teachers, had an unnerving talent for picking up whispered conversations, this time however she did not bother to turn around,

"Potter, Evans," she said, clearly irritated, "I would appreciate it if you at least made an effort to pay attention on your first day." This caused Lily to blush slightly, and quelled the witty retort she had been preparing to aim at her partner. Unfortunately, James' abilities to suppress his thoughts were not equal to hers when in the face of authority. So he dipped his fingers in the mess of ink that had accumulated on their desk and flicked it at Lily, it hit her in the face.

Lily took a deep breath and told herself to ignore him; this boy was not worth getting any further into her teacher's bad graces. James however did not appreciate being ignored, so in a desperate attempt to get her attention again he reached into the loose pocket of her school robes and withdrew her wand, and so Lily stopped ignoring him.

She glared angrily and silently took a swipe at the wand. James underestimated the force behind the grab and the wand clattered to the floor as Lily's hand brushed accidently against James' cheek. The ink James had flicked at her still resided on her cheeks, and her hands were covered in ink from her frantic attempts to clean off her notes, James' fingers were equally as messy, and he had a smudge of black on his cheek from where Lily's hand had rubbed against it. To sum up the situation, it appeared as though James and Lily had partaken in an ink battle of sorts, and Minerva McGonagall, on her first day back from a peaceful, child-free, summer, was not prepared to deal with such a foolish activity calmly.

"YOU TWO! I have had enough of your childish antics, if you wish to behave like children you can be punished accordingly, I want you to stand in the corner and face the wall until the bell rings. Now!"

Lily's cheeks had turned a lovely shade of humiliated red, and she did not bother to dispute her punishment, teachers, in her experience, disliked the blame game. So instead she walked determinedly towards the wall with her head held high, trying very hard to ignore the snickers aimed in her direction. Potter had no such mortification, instead he was grinning openly, and as he sauntered to his destination he tugged softly on one of his partner's braids.

Minerva McGonagall groaned as her students filed out just under an hour later, she could already tell it was going to be a long seven years.

_Second Year_

Their bickering only grew worse as the year progressed, but McGonagall steadfastly refused to let them switch partners. She had been teaching for over twenty years, and never once had the many partners that had passed through her classroom ever failed to work, Lily and James were not the exception. They would work it out eventually.

Second year started out even worse, but it wasn't until late May that things came to blows, literally. James, most likely drunk on summer fever (or possibly having realized that the urge to constantly make fun of the poor red-head was sprung from an adolescent attraction to her), had upped his teasing to a point where Lily was forced, with her uncontrollable temper, to retaliate. To this day no one, not even the participants themselves, know who threw the first punch, nor can they now remember what the argument was originally about, but the fight went down in Hogwarts history.

Had the alteration occurred their third year, or any year after that, the winner would have been almost certain, but at that exact moment in Lily and James' second year (when James had yet to hit his growth spurt) they were evenly matched. Both were around the same height and weight, and both were undeniably upset, upset enough that James forgot the promise he made to his father never to hit a girl.

It ended with the pair crashing into a desk and cracking their heads painfully against it, leaving them stunned and slightly bloody on the floor of the classroom. They manage to pull themselves into sitting position just as McGonagall entered to room, and with the entire class circled around them gawking, there was no hiding what had happened.

To say McGonagall was livid would be an understatement, instead of her countenance deepening in to a vivid red like most people's would have when they got angry, she got deathly pale. The two young people clutching their heads on the floor scooted back nervously, accidently knocking into each other in the process before jumping apart.

James was staring at his favorite teacher in disbelief, because there was no possible way that someone's lips could get that thin, and that straight. While Lily was transfixed by the throbbing vein on her forehead. McGonagall's words were short and clipped as she addressed them,

"Hospital Wing. Now. Then. Come. Right. Back. Here. Understand?" James and Lily nodded, but didn't move towards the door; instead they turned and faced each other, their wish to avoid the hospital wing seemingly outweighing their mutual dislike, for they began to heal each other.

Lily used Episky to heal Potter's bleeding (if not broken) nose and James used a Tergeo to remove all the blood from both their shirts, the cuts were sealed and split lips dealt with. Unfortunately, due to a lack of bruise paste in the transfiguration classroom the duo were just going to have to live with the steadily darkening patches of skin. Unless of course they both swallowed their pride and went to the hospital wing, unlikely because in their minds that would be admitting the other had actually managed to land a solid blow.

Class went on normally until the bell rang, when Lily and James were held to get thoroughly yelled at. After she dismissed them the professor felt an odd sense of pride, basic or not, most second years didn't even know any healing spells, never mind being able to cast them.

With that thought in mind she forwent the usual procedure of owling parents. The context the spells had been used in was vastly inappropriate, but the use of such spells in general was enough to warrant a reward of some kind.

_Third Year_

People say things have to get worse before they can get better, and although the fistfight fiasco of second year seemed to be the pair's one and only dive into physical violence their bickering reached new levels of cruelty. They were easily provoked when it came to each other, no matter how easy going they seemed when around anyone else, and having known each other for almost three years they knew how to make their words cut.

So it was no surprise when, in early March, the duo walked into transfiguration arguing fiercely over some matter or another. What was surprising was that unlike on most days they failed to stop when the bell rang.

"…whatever he did to you that offended you to a point where you feel the need to publically humiliate him whenever the opportunity arises, as well as whenever you feel slightly bored eludes me. But it surely must have been severely embarrassing for you to have taken it to the despicable level you have."

"Humiliating? The only thing that little snake could humiliate is himself-"

"You're the only reason he's ever embarrassed. Honestly, he could probably take you if you didn't insist on going on going after him four on one!"

"Well Evans, since you are obviously the picture of wisdom, tell me why I should leave old Snivellus alone?"

"Because it's wrong, and you're humiliating him and being an awful human being,"

"You're going to have to do better than that Evans, it's not my fault he can't take a simple joke,"

"Fine! Because he's my best friend and I'm asking you to."

"Yes because when Evans asks something we _must_ obey."

"Well what do you want then?"

"Well I might be convinced if you'd agree to go to Hogsmeade with me (James' latest lines of attacks normally included some form of that particular question)."

"Why would I go out with _you_, of all people?"

"Most people would say because I'm a brilliant chaser, top of the year in transfiguration, and devilishly handsome."

"Most people would be idiots then."

"If you can't beat 'em join 'em."

"I quite like not being an idiot thanks."

"But then you're left all alone."

"I'd rather be alone than with you."

"Well that's a shame, because I'm the only one that's ever shown any interest in you, besides your snake anyway, and he ditches you the minute any of his _other_ friends come around."

Professor McGonagall had been standing at the front of the classroom glaring holes into the heads of the arguing pair, they however had remained oblivious to that particular action and Minerva was five minutes into her class and had yet to start teaching. She had also gotten very little sleep last night, and Sirius Black had turned her scrambled eggs into a peacock this morning, so she was not in a good mood. Finding her favorite students (when they were apart anyway) biting each other's heads off when they should be taking notes however, was the last straw,

"Evans. Potter. You are third year students, so could you please explain to me why you're acting like children?"

"Professor, I-" McGonagall however was fed up, sleep deprived and hungry, so she interrupted,

"I don't want to hear it Miss Evans, I have yet to have a peaceful class with you two in my almost three years of teaching you. I have never seen such bright young children act so immaturely in all my years, and I've never been so disappointed to see students waste their potential as I have been with the two of you." Lily at this point was blushing and staring at her shoes, and even Potter had the decency to look slightly ashamed (if only slightly), the professor wasn't done however,

"How you two are passing my class I don't know considering you never pay attention because you're too busy trying to kill each other. Ms. Evans, for such a responsible young girl you have an unseemly amount of detentions all because you are incapable of curbing your temper, you should be ashamed of yourself-"

"ENOUGH!" Minerva McGonagall blinked in shock as James addressed her, his knuckles were white from the amount of pressure he was using to grip the edge of his desk, and his face was frozen in a mask of fury. She was still speechless when he started talking again,

"Look Professor," he managed to say in a much quieter tone, "I understand you're upset with us, and you have every reason to be, but you've yelled at Evans enough, she's almost in tears for Merlin's sake." Tears were threatening to spill down the girls blushing cheeks, but how James had known that with her head facing the ground is anyone's guess, "You can punish us however you see fit, but mortifying her isn't going to fix anything, so please, just leave Evans alone."

McGonagall, probably still in shock did not reprimand the boy, instead simply flattening her lips together and pulling out several detention slips from her desk, handing one to each of the children,

"You know the drill, report to Filch tonight and he'll assign you your punishments. You Mr. Potter get a second one for your disrespect." Lily and James could only nod as McGonagall returned to the front of the classroom.

"Thanks Potter," Lily whispered quietly, and for once James only nodded in response. Any thoughts she had been harboring about how he possibly wasn't as horrible as she thought were quickly vanished however when Potter pulled her chair out as she moved to sit down, causing her to fall to the floor. She snapped his quill in response and the two spent the rest of class taking notes on their corner.

Minerva kneaded her forehead as the students left, dealing with Evans and Potter always left her with a headache, especially when they did something confusing like what Potter had just done. With a sigh she muttered the empty room,

"And ten points to Gryffindor for sticking up for a classmate."

_Fourth Year_

The mortification of being made to sit in the corner like children had long since worn off for James and Lily, and even the most immature of their classmates no longer snickered. They were still sent there however, if only so that their continued bickering was stopped from interrupting the class.

So when McGonagall ordered them over there after James stole Lily's quill and held it high above his head (for he was much taller than her at this point), no one was particularly shocked, just another day as far as they were concerned.

James, whose best subject had always been transfiguration, quickly mastered the day's work, and got, predictably, bored. So he took Lily's quill, which he still had not returned to its rightful owner, and began to doodle on his notes.

When he ran out of parchment, he switched to Lily's notes, who was too busy trying to turn her fish into a frog (which was made more difficult by the fact that it refused to stay still) to notice. After having scribbled all the snitches and quaffles that could possibly fit on the margins of Lily's paper he switched to his arm.

He pushed his white, uniform shirt up past his elbows and drew a dragon. it didn't look at all like the picture he had seen in the book Evans had been reading at lunch the other day, but it was still remarkably better than his past ventures into the artistic world, so he took a moment to admire his work.

He switched the quill to his other hand after a moment, and shakily began to draw, sticking to simple swirls and plumes of smoke. Lily looked up, but didn't even bother to reprimand him about stealing her quill, she honestly didn't even care that much anymore. She rolled her eyes when she saw her notes, but she'd long since become used to it at this point, and Emmeline always pays her a couple sickles to see the doodles anyway ("I want to see what he's thinking about, you know?").

Her only comment was to mutter something about ink poisoning, which James could only presume was one of those weird muggle things. Normally there would be a whole, huge affair about her quill being dulled, and her ink being wasted, and her notes being ruined, but she was a little too busy trying to get her god-damned fish ("Sorry Professor.") to stop wriggling. So for once she let it go, and decided to ignore the little voice in her head edging her towards taking her frustration out on her usual scape goat.

Finally she gave up and stunned the poor creature, this unfortunately killed it, the spell (whose power was increased by her irritation) was just too much for its small body to handle. Ignoring James' comment about murderers she went to get a new one from McGonagall, and was mostly successful in her endeavor as long as you didn't count the whole glaring business.

Lily was convinced that the fish was refusing to sprout legs just annoy her. But, realizing that stunning wasn't going to work she swallowed the small squeamish part of her that was screaming "Gross" and reached into the small jar. She pinned the fish down with her fingers and somehow managed to point her wand so it didn't hit her hand. Taking a deep breath Lily stated the incantation,

"_Pisficors_," and then Lily blinked, missing the transformation. She was about to give a defeated sigh when the fish wriggled its way out from under her hand and launched itself at her head, except it wasn't a fish anymore. The creature sitting on her head was a frog.

Lily was filled with pride for a moment before realizing that there was a frog on her head, and quickly started screeching and batting at her head with her hands.

James started laughing, and even McGonagall didn't seem to be putting her heart into it as she glared at her, and everyone else was laughing as well and Lily was just sitting there, red-faced, looking for something to distract her.

She found it as she saw something James must have scribbled onto the wall recently,

_James&Lily_

She just stayed there opening and closing her mouth wordlessly at it for a moment. The class was still laughing by the time the bell rang and Potter finally noticed what she was staring at. He raised an eyebrow cockily at her, preparing for the verbal assault. Lily however was still embarrassed from the frog incident, and proud of her successful transfiguration, and there was something unfamiliar lurking in her chest that felt kind of warm, and she really didn't have room for any more emotions, especially one as forceful as anger so instead she just pouted at him and said,

"Lily's supposed to be first," and then she left him there, gapping like a fish and she briefly wondered if she could turn him into a frog.

Using the five minutes she had before the next round of students would show up Minerva examined the wall, trying to find the cause of Potter's unusual display at the end of class. She found the inscription and raised her wand to remove it, it was defacing school property after all, but then she stopped, because it was… sweet.

The professor then did something that she'd never admit to anyone in fear of losing her hard earned reputation; the permanency charm should make sure it couldn't be removed for a while.

_Fifth Year_

It wasn't all together odd to see Minerva McGonagall in the library, but most students rarely saw her there, mostly because she normally entered space on Saturdays, and even the Ravenclaws rarely spent there Saturdays in the quiet room Madame Prince guarded so heavily. The obvious exception was those unfortunate students in the O.W.L. or N.E.W.T. years, but even then most didn't stray in so early in the year.

So to say she was shocked when upon her entrance she noticed James Potter and Lily Evans at a table, together, would be an understatement, and a rather large one at that.

James Potter normally avoided the library, he had enough natural intelligence to get him by well enough in school, and if on the rare occasion he decided an assignment was worth doing some actual research on he sent his friend Remus Lupin to fetch him a couple books on the subject. Not of course that Remus did it willingly, but reading a textbook was better than hexing a first year so he normally begrudgingly agreed.

Although Lily Evans didn't have the same phobia of libraries as James did, she still didn't exactly live in the place. She definitely spent more time there researching things for various essays than the average Gryffindor (especially if the topic interested her, which, admittedly, happened quite often, not having grown knowing all the things everyone else in her class seemed to view as common knowledge), but you wouldn't have expected to see her there early on a Saturday morning (it was widely known throughout the castle that Miss Evans was not a morning person and had an especially bad temper before nine O'clock). The fact that the two of them were sitting at the same table and showing no inclination of ripping each other's throats out made the matter even more surprising.

Minerva blinked repeatedly, pinched herself, rubbed her fists against her closed eyelids, but the scene didn't change, and then the dirty blonde head of Remus Lupin appeared by her side.

"Amazing, isn't it?" He said, and as a mutual friend of Lily and James he couldn't quite keep the awe out of his voice. Minerva nodded at Remus, another of her favorites (if she had favorites that is, which she didn't, because she was a professional), but her eyes never wavering from the miracle in front of her. Remus continued,

"It started out as just transfiguration, because they _are_ partners no matter how much they resent that, and she's not very good at practical in that particular subject, and James is rubbish about theory, and they both want to do spectacularly on their exams."

"From what I've gathered they're not allowed to talk about pranking, or rule breaking, or Slytherins or responsibility or friends, they just have to be James and Lily. Which doesn't really make sense to me because pranking and rule-breaking, and responsibility and Slytherins, and friends are a part of who they are, but apparently it's working because she's now helping him with Charms and Potions, and he's helping her with Astronomy an Defense, and one of them is helping the other with Herbology, and the other is helping with Magical Creatures, and they're both awful at History of Magic."

McGonagall could only blink because she was sure that the speech he had just given was the most she'd ever heard in one go form the thoughtful, soft spoken teenager next her, and the surprises just kept on coming at her and James Potter and Lily Evans were sitting, civilly, together, only meters away, and there was an odd feeling of triumph in heart because this partnership was working, finally.

Quite suddenly she couldn't remember what she came into the library to get.

_Sixth Year_

The Ministry was examining the Hogwarts teaching staff and curriculum, although why Minerva didn't have a clue. Seeing as they'd never had much of an interest before, and there hadn't been any major problems recently. But she'd never claimed to understand the Ministry and Albus wasn't protesting (much anyway), so she decided she'd just go with it. It wasn't like the examiners hovered around all day or anything, just sat quietly in the back of the classroom for one or two classes, occasionally asking questions. Of course the class they would pick to sit through had to be the one with Potter and Evans in it.

She'd pleaded with Albus to have the schedules changed around, or Potter and Evans to temporarily switch classes, or _anything_. But he had just sat there with that twinkle in his eye and gravely told her in his attempting-to-be-serious-but-really-I'm-just-amused voice that there was nothing that could be done.

Minerva privately decided that she was going to hijack the vast collection of sweets he kept in his office sometime in the near future for that.

She paused slightly outside her classroom door on the day of the examination, briefly considering becoming mysteriously ill. But she had been sorted into Gryffindor all those years ago so instead she squared her shoulders, pursed her lip into a thin line, tightened the bun on the back of her head and assured herself that she'd had a good run in the whole teaching business.

The first thing she heard as she entered the classroom was,

"I SWEAR TO MELRIN POTTER, IF YOU ASK ME THAT ONE MORE TIME I AM GOING TO BITE YOU!" She checked to see that yes the examiner had already taken his seat in the back of the room and closed her eyes for a short moment in dread. But after a second her brief wallow in self-pity had ended and her usual no-nonsense teaching persona was back in place.

"Miss Evans, please refrain from sinking your admittedly sharp canines into Mr. Potter if you wouldn't mind, and Mr. Potter, please use your limited self-control to stop yourself from asking Miss Evans to go out with you in my classroom."

The pair nodded slightly, tearing their furious, exasperated, and slightly amused gazes from each other and turned to face the board. Their unusual silence was too good to last and five minutes after she had explained the assignment Lily's chair was "accidently" turned into an ostrich by James, an ostrich who didn't particularly like being sat on, though how it managed to buck Lily off eluded the aged professor entirely.

The girl of course went flying and ended up knocking Mr. Potter and herself to the ground when she landed on him, of course prompting him to take the opportunity to make a rude innuendo about the awkward position they found themselves in, causing Miss Evans to shriek in fury and indignation, meanwhile the furious and rather confused ostrich continued to wreak havoc around Minerva's classroom.

Great, she was being sacked for sure. Never one to go down without a fight however Professor McGonagall quickly returned the ostrich to its happy existence as a chair and ordered Potter and Evans to their corner.

Several minutes later when the excitement had calmed down and the class returned to their work the examiner approached McGonagall.

"Do you usually send students to a corner as punishment?" He asked.

"The standard procedure is to give an detention or deduct points, both of which I use quite frequently on Miss Evans and Mr. Potter over there. However that method really doesn't seem to work on them, and ever since their first day in my classroom they have insisted on acting like children, and so I decided to punish them as such." Minerva replied truthfully, for if she was going to be sacked she might as well do a thorough job at it.

"And sticking them in a corner _does_ work?" He asked dubiously, eyeing the pair in the corner as they whispered heatedly to each other and gestured wildly with their hands.

"No. But it keeps them from distracting my class further," and for the first time Minerva saw something akin to amusement in the examiners eyes. She felt a sudden hope that this man in front of her knew what it was like to teach particularly troublesome teenagers.

He obviously did for she was informed by Albus some weeks later that he'd given her an outstanding review.

_Seventh Year_

Sometimes Minerva missed the old Lily and James, the bickering, fighting, I-want-to-tear-your-throat-out Lily and James. She really couldn't be sure because the present almost always seemed like it was worse than the past, but at the time being she'd much rather be telling them to stop yelling then watching Mr. Potter stick his tongue down his girlfriend's throat.

She coughed loudly and watched with some satisfaction as they immediately jumped apart. Minerva arched her eyebrow (a skill she'd picked up over the years) and decided that she'd let them attempt to come up with an excuse, it should be entertaining if nothing else.

James Potter has always been an excellent liar, a necessity with his occupation as ringleader of the schools group of pranksters, but his head had apparently been clouded over with thoughts of Lily Evans for it took him a minute or so to come up with a story, and hesitation is always the first sign of a liar. There was a small chance that he and his new girlfriend could have gotten off with a warning, but in order to make up for his obvious hesitation he picked the first lie that came to mind, or so Minerva assumed, for if it wasn't the first one than she'd hate to see the actual original thought.

"Umm. . .you see. . . Lily was. . .Lily was. . .chewing gum!" Here Minerva raised her eyebrow even higher and tried valiantly to come up with an idea of how that excuse made sense, while at the same time mentally marking down the second sign of a lie: stuttering. Lily apparently was going through the same process for she was glaring at James with a strange sort of intensity, somehow managing to inject a look of complete and utter confusion on to her countenance as well.

"You know how she's Head Girl and all-"

"May I remind you Mr. Potter that you are Head Boy." Here James flushed slightly,

"Yes but she actually wants the position, whereas I don't really care all too much-ow!" the last exclamation was a result of being kicked violently in the shin by an irritated looking Lily Evans and seeing the silent get-on-with-it looks he was receiving from both his professor and girlfriend he quickly picked up his story.

"She was chewing gum, and I didn't really want her to get in trouble because she's Head Girl, and I've never been able to tell her what to do so I figured it would be better just to confiscate it." Minerva stared disbelievingly at the boy, this was seriously what he came up with?. Deciding she was having far too much fun to stop Minerva proceeded to ask him,

"And why exactly couldn't you remove the gum with your hand?" James looked slightly uncomfortable, having come to the realization that his lie was absolute rubbish, but James Potter was not anything if not persistant, so he continued with it anyway,

"Well, like you said last year professor, Lily has really sharp teeth, and if I tried to take her gum away she'd bite me." Minerva resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose instead turning to Miss. Evans, who was glaring at her boyfriend in a manner that Minerva supposed was quite terrifying. But Mr. Potter had come up with a simply horrendous cover story so she really couldn't work up any sympathy for the boy. She gestured to Miss Evans to continue, so she tore her frightfully furious gaze from James and met the Professor's gaze evenly (though slightly embarrassed),

"I'm slightly. . .possessive about my things professor, and when Potter (the use of the boy's surname didn't go unnoticed by the professor or James, Minerva remain stoic but James couldn't help but wince slightly) took my gum from me I was a little upset and endeavored to get it back." James picked up again after that,

"And of course this just left us in the same position as earlier so I got it back again, and then the cycle just repeated itself."

"I see," said Minerva, her lips thinning, "and where, may I ask, is this gum now?"

"Err. . .," James said, looking at Lily for help, but she was steadfastly ignoring him so he stated with as much sincerity as he could muster up (which wasn't much), "I swallowed it."

"And why didn't you do this in the first place Mr. Potter?"

"Common sense has never been my strong point ma'am; surely you of all people know that?" McGonagall let silence engulf the room for several seconds before saying,

"Twenty points from Gryffindor for the most atrocious lie I've heard in my entire teaching career. Gum! Honestly Mr. Potter, if you're going to try and lie to me at least put some effort into it and do it convincingly!" It was at this point the desperate giggles that the rest of the class had been desperately trying to hold in broke loose, while James smiled sheepishly at his head of house.

"We'll just go to our corner now."

"Yes Mr. Potter, why don't you do that," she agreed. Several moments later when McGonagall looked overt to check on them she saw that Miss Evans was scratching a heart in the wall around the pair of names the James had carved in their fourth year. Minerva decided that turning a blind eye was the best way of dealing with the matter, mostly because she really didn't want to get into _that_ at the moment.

She suddenly came to the realization that it didn't matter whether they were worse now than they were a year ago, because in a couple months she'd be free of them. She'd lasted the whole seven years, and not once changed the partnership, although she'd been tempted to on many occasions. Allowing herself a small triumphant and relieved smile (_free_!) she continued on with the third year essays she was grading. Suddenly she was hit with a wave of sadness. _Seven years_, that was how long the pair had been wreaking havoc in her classroom, and quite soon they weren't going to be there anymore. Did she _really _want them to leave?

Quickly she swept any doubts from her mind, in a couple months they'd leave like the rest of all the students she'd ever taught, because they certainly weren't going to be held back. Ignoring the nagging thought the back of her head that they weren't normal students she moved on to the next essay.

_Some Months_ _Later_

James and Lily joined the Order of the Phoenix and Minerva felt like kicking herself. That's what she got for letting herself feel nostalgic, just as she thought she was rid of them too! The phrase 'be careful what you wish for' had never held more meaning for her.

Minerva tried consoling herself with the fact that she had abolished the partnership program her classroom had run on for her entire teaching career, she was not going through another seven years like _that_ again.

~**thanks for reading, please don't favorite without reviewing**


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